A closer look at the subregions of Asia reveals that Western and South-eastern Asia are among those contributing to

this slowdown in the decreasing trend, ref lecting the fact that countries in South-eastern Asia have been affected by
adverse climate conditions with impacts on food availability and prices, while countries in Western Asia have been
affected by prolonged armed conf licts. In Africa, the situation is more pressing in the region of sub-Saharan Africa
where an estimated 23.2 percent of the population – or between one out of four and one out of five people in the region
– may have suffered from chronic food deprivation in 2017.
The dynamics in the prevalence of undernourishment, combined with rapid population growth, have led to a dramatic
increase in the total number of undernourished people (Table 2). The number of undernourished people in sub-Saharan
Africa rose from 181 million in 2010 to almost 222 million in 2016, an increase of 22.6 percent in six years, and – based
on current projections – may have increased further to more than 236 million in 2017.